The Challenge

Parking was a major concern for residents. Many were concerned about parking on the street or walking from nearby garages, but the team at Tailor Lofts struggled to provide solutions for them. 

Not enough spots

In their parking lot, they had less than 30 spots to accommodate 58 units. This led to a wait list that was out of control. At any given moment, there were 10 or more people on the waitlist – that’s almost 20% of their total residents. Many people ended up waiting over a year for a spot. It wasn’t rare for people to move out after never getting a spot. 

This not only frustrated current residents but also sabotaged their ability to attract new residents. During tours, Kri and her team always dreaded when people asked about parking, because all they could tell them was that there was a waitlist to get a spot. For many people, this was a dealbreaker that pushed them to look at other properties. 

They attempted to provide some solution by having a security shuttle on call to transport people to and from a parking garage two blocks away. Not only did this add more to the team’s workload, but it also wasn’t satisfactory to many residents. 

An operational nightmare

Since people had nowhere to park, they often disregarded the rules. “There was constant abuse,” Kri said. Both residents and their guests were parking in the wrong spots. 

And this made the other residents mad. At least two times a day, residents called with complaints. This led to a lot of burden on the team’s shoulders. 

One of the primary headaches here was the fact that they had no reliable record of who was allowed to park in the lot, just a rarely-updated spreadsheet. The previous management even told Kri when she first started, “Oh yeah, I never use that.” This made enforcement extremely difficult. Someone could easily say that they did have a spot, and there was no way to definitely tell if they were lying. 

Whenever a complaint came in, they had to walk over to the lot to see if they recognized the cars, call security to see if they did, check the cameras to see if they could recognize someone they came in with, and then make the hard decision to tow. Because of the unreliability of this system, they were often hesitant to tow for fear of towing a resident, especially if they were rightfully allowed to park there.

“Dealing with people parked in the wrong spot was taking up hours of our time micromanaging it, and it was always such a headache,” Kri recalled of the pre-Parkade times. 

For Kri, parking took up at least an hour or two every day. And for security guards, this number shot up to 4 hours per day at times. On top of the time wasted, the frustration had a real impact on the relationships between the residents and the staff. 

“Parking was even creating some friction between me and the residents and even the security guards.”

The Solution

Once new management took over, Kri was fed up with the parking and began to actively search for better solutions for their biggest problem. After a Google search for parking solutions, she came across a familiar app: Parkade. She had actually downloaded the app and played around with it before. She loved the good reviews and the clean and intuitive user interface, so she decided to start looking into it now that she had the green light from management. 

For Tailor Lofts, the primary draw to Parkade is subleasing, a clear and simple solution to help them make the most of their spaces when not in use. Although they aren’t able to expand their lot to build more spots, allowing residents to share spots helps reduce the number of long-term spots they need to provide, and in turn, gives their current and future residents a better answer when they ask about parking. 

The Results

In just a few months after implementing Parkade at their property, Tailor Lofts immediately began to feel the positive impact on all fronts. 

Better solutions for their residents

Happy tenants is one of Kri’s main goals, and Parkade definitely helped create a more positive resident experience. They have had several tenants reach out and express their gratitude for how easy Parkade makes it for them and their guests to find parking. 

Instead of dreading the parking question during tours, the team is happy to have a good answer to give them now. 

“It’s often a deal-breaker when I tell someone on a tour that we don’t have parking. But now I can finally tell them that we have a solution,” Kri smiled as she told us.

Residents with long-term parking leases were also happy that they had the opportunity to make a little extra money on the side. One retail tenant went from being extremely upset that he couldn’t get any reliable spots for his employees and guests before Parkade, to totally changing his tune when he looked in the app and saw that he was making up to $200 per month on subletting his tandem spaces. Just this last month, people rented his spots at least 100 times. 

Boosted revenue

Parkade brought tangible results, too. Before, they were locked into the revenue that long-term leases could provide. Now, they’re able to capitalize on the well-utilized short-term leases, too. The month before they launched Parkade, their revenue sat at $1050. Now, it’s not uncommon for them to hit a $3000+ month. 

Another benefit stems from the fact that they unbundled parking from rent payments. By centralizing parking payments in the Parkade app, parking fees get paid even when rent doesn't.

“We used to have the parking grouped in with the rent, so if rent didn’t get paid, we didn’t get anything. But now people always make sure to at least pay for their parking, because they don’t want to lose their spot.” 

Decreased staff workload (and mental load)

First and foremost, Kri is stoked to finally have a good system with a convenient app to keep track of who’s allowed to park in their lot. 

“It’s amazing having all the tenants in the system with their license plate, their spot, and how much they’re paying.” Kri told us. “It makes it a lot easier for us to call people out if they’re lying.”

Enforcement is so much easier with Parkade. Residents can easily report vehicles in their spot, and then the Parkade team can take it from there. If it’s a resident, they can assign a fine, and if it’s an unknown vehicle, they can tow. No more hesitancy to tow out of fear they had it wrong, thanks to their always up-to-date system. 

Kri is grateful to be more hands-off in the process since she’s no longer the first contact when there’s an issue. “Calls with complaints have probably gone down by around 80% now.” 

In addition to the time this freed up, it also had an impact on Kri and the team’s emotional well-being. 

“All of the complaints and issues were really affecting my mental health. And to have all of those calls and complaints and issues be almost eradicated, it was such a relief.” 

A solution she’s proud to own

When we were talking with Kri, she was oozing with pride about being the one to bring this solution to the table. It’s one of the most impactful strategies they’ve implemented at the property, and she feels incredible that she was the one to lead the charge. 

She’s already advocating to spread Parkade to the other properties at Cannon Management.

“Implementing Parkade is one of the things I’m proudest of in my career as a property manager,” she shared with us.